Slaughtering horses in Texas for human
consumption is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled
on January 19th. The decision overturns a lower court’s
ruling last year on a 1949 state law that bans the
sale or possession of horse meat. In upholding the
Texas law, the Court of Appeals noted that, contrary
to the lower court’s ruling, the law had not
been repealed or preempted by federal law and several
other states have also banned the commercial use of
horse meat for human consumption. There are two horse
slaughterplants in Texas and one in Illinois. The
American Farm Bureau Federation said “This legislation
mandates unprecedented government authority over the
animal agricultural sector” in that it “ban[s]
a livestock product for reasons other than food
safety or public health.” The slaughter
industry is deciding whether to appeal the recent
ruling (see: http://tinyurl.com/36xe5k
).

The American Horse Slaughter Prevention
Act, which would ban horse slaughter nationally, was
reintroduced in both the U.S. House of Representatives
and Senate earlier this month. The House passed the
Act last year (263-146) but it stalled in the Senate.
A similar bill passed the Senate in 2005. See: http://tinyurl.com/j75hb

The Downed Animal and Food Safety Protection
Act, H.R. 661, has 75 original co-sponsors in the
U.S. House. A companion bill is being introduced in
the U.S. Senate.
The bill is intended to help safeguard the food supply
by banning the slaughter of animals who are too sick
or injured to stand or walk. The House and Senate
previously approved “downed animal” legislation,
but some former members of the House Agriculture Committee
and Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee blocked
it from final passage.
"I can't believe that in the 21st Century there
is anyone who thinks it's appropriate to allow sick,
diseased, or injured livestock incapable of supporting
their own body weight to be part of our food supply,"
said Rep. Steven LaTourette (N.Y.), a co-sponsor.
He also commented that the U.S. Department of Agriculture
had banned the slaughter of nonambulatory cattle in
2004 (see: http://tinyurl.com/3hhyo) but the policy was never finalized or fully enforced.

Responding to customers, such as McDonald’s
and Wal-Mart, and pressured for years by PETA and
others, Smithfield
Foods Inc. announced that it will phase
out gestation stalls over the next decade. Farms that
it contracts with will be required to phase them out
by 2027. Smithfield is the U.S.’s largest producer
of pigs, and the country’s first major pig producer
to initiate a change to group pens. Having researched
the matter, the company concluded that stalls and
pens are equally productive.
The time frame was give because “Group housing
does present some challenges, and we don't have all
the answers at this time," a
spokesperson said: He added that the phase-out
period will also probably prevent prices from being
greatly affected.

The National Pork Producers Council
considers gestation stalls to be “appropriate,”
and said Smithfield’s decision does not change
its policy on them. Feedstuffs’ Foodlink, an
industry e-newsletter, said: “It is anticipated
that the action by Smithfield will provide animal
activists with ammunition to go after additional legislative
and court initiatives banning crates for sows as well
as cages for poultry” (see: http://tinyurl.com/2gxxak).
The Humane Society of the U.S. has posted a page about
the announcement, with a brief video including pigs
in gestation crates, at: http://tinyurl.com/38hnja.

A lawsuit alleging animal cruelty has
been filed against CorcPork Inc., a pig production
company, by the Animal Legal Defense Fund, East Bay
Animal Advocates, and three California residents.
Clougherty Packing Co., the state’s largest
pig slaughterer and a subsidiary of Hormel Foods Corp.,
is also a defendant. The suit accuses the company
brand, Farmer John, of fraudulent business practices
in misleading consumers with ads that say the pigs
were raised in "a family tradition since 1931."
The 13-page complaint spells out the intensive practices
the company employs. The plaintiffs are seeking a
court order to change the way the pigs are treated.
A spokesperson for Clougherty Packing said: “[H]ere
in California, voters clearly said in approving Prop.
64 that they are opposed to this sort of shakedown
litigation." Proposition 64 is a state law limiting
private enforcement of laws against unfair business
practices.

On January 17th, Farm Sanctuary argued
for legal standing in its lawsuit against Corcpork
(see http://tinyurl.com/fr87m).
The organization cited an earlier ruling that recognized
the need for advocacy organizations to be able to
speak on behalf of nonhuman animals. See: http://tinyurl.com/2xq488

Ten counts of animal cruelty have been
filed against owners and an employee of a Creston,
Ohio pig farm (see: http://tinyurl.com/22ncoh).
If convicted, each faces up to 90 days in jail on
each misdemeanor charge. The Humane Farming Association
(HFA) bought full-page ads in area newspapers to publicize
the matter. HFA Director Bradley Miller said: “[W]e
believe there finally should be jail time for animal
abuse and cruelty of suffering in Ohio. Right now
it is just a misdemeanor, but in many states, it would
warrant a felony charge.'' Special prosecutor Frank
Forchione said he wanted to be a voice for the animals
after viewing a videotape of pigs being hung prior
to being killed (see: http://tinyurl.com/2a6g4a).
He is considering requesting that the case be moved
to another county. The farm's attorney, Russell Buzzelli,
asserts his clients are innocent. A January 30th court
date has been set.

Craig County, Oklahoma authorities have
seized 1,250 adult Barbados sheep, 30 of their lambs,
300 cattle, 12 horses and a dog from the properties
of 46-year-old David Bradley Bell after about 400
dead sheep were found there. Acting on a tip, sheriff's
investigators had been investigating Bell's properties
for about a month. Tulsa World reports of a search
on Jan. 17th : “Carcasses were found strewn
about the pasture, but the most dramatic discoveries
came in a barn and on a house porch near the front
of the property. Inside the barn, dozens of dead or
dying animals were piled atop each other, some lying
several deep in a feeder pen. The scene reminded some
investigators of an animal version of concentration
camp photos.” (The sources below include a slideshow.)

No feed or water was found there, and
the animals are believed to have died from starvation
rather than exposure. Bell reportedly told authorities
that he could not afford to keep feeding the sheep.
Jailed on complaints of animal cruelty, improper disposal
of a carcass and other counts, he is free on $5,000
bail. Another individual person might be arrested
this week in connection with the case. Bell’s
attorney insists that his client had fed and cared
for the sheep. Bell is said to have been investigated
last year on reports of neglected cattle. The surviving
animals were taken to another farm where they are
being fed and vaccinated. Donations are being accepted
to help care for them.

Thousands of pigs were stranded by
recent snowstorms in southeastern Colorado (see http://tinyurl.com/2qlx2t).
Code III Associates, a private disaster response program
that deals with animal issues, led rescue efforts
at Butte Farm (6,000 pigs) and Pioneer Pork (2,500
pigs). At Pioneer, a free-range farm participating
in American Humane’s “Free Farmed”
program, pigs housed in small sheds across the 2,000-acre
property were unable to access food or water. Many
were pregnant and near delivery. At least 1,000 piglets
were orphaned or abandoned, and 50 or 60 animals were
euthanized due to dehydration and/or injury. An estimated
10-15% of the animals at the two farms died.

Calving season in the Plains states is expected to
be the hardest and costliest it has been in at least
a decade. It has just begun on most cattle ranches
there and will peak in late February and early March.
The New York Times profiled one newborn calf: “…falling
from the womb in the dead of this particular winter
— steaming on the frozen ground, its body illuminated
by a circle of headlights…” Her “small
size — about 50 pounds, compared with 80 or
85 pounds on average — and its early delivery,
about a month before the veterinarian had predicted,
probably reflected the impact of the mother’s
near-starvation” brought about “by successive
blizzards and brutal cold over the last month.”
The featured ranch has lost about one of every six
calves so far, more than three times its usual death
rate. The profiled calf “No. 207 would take
its place in the dead pile, the grim place in the
barn on the Butler ranch where many of the 25 or so
calves already lost this winter lay frozen and twisted.”
The article includes a slideshow.

The rancher, Dale Butler, commented:
“You’re at the mercy of forces and doing
everything you can to save them.” However, a
1997 U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) study reports:
“The number one cause of death loss in calves
in 1996 was adverse weather [20.2%]. One option to
minimize weather losses is to change the calving season
to a time when the possibility of severe weather is
decreased.” According to a USDA paper: “Historically,
producers have attempted to increase profitability
with earlier calving dates and accelerated feeding
and supplementation programs, thereby increasing weaning
weights. This manipulation tends to increase the stress
on the cow herd as well as production costs. Calving
in late winter/early spring has eliminated the synchronization
of the cow production cycle and the natural nutrient
availability cycle of the forage…One solution
to help reduce inputs is to calve later in the spring,
to coincide with the growth and availability of green,
lush, spring forage. This adjustment should help producers
optimize the use of their static land and forage base
resource, reduce the impact of environmental stress,
labor and supplementation needs for their cattle herd.”

So far President Bush has issued disaster
declarations for Colorado, Kansas and Nebraska. New
Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas were also affected
by the snowstorms. Bills for the provision of
federal aid to farmers and ranchers affected by disasters
have recently been introduced in the U.S. Senate.
Among them is the Emergency Farm Relief Act of 2007,
which would provide monetary assistance for losses
caused by the recent blizzards (see: http://tinyurl.com/2qlx2t)
and by drought in 2005 and 2006. It would provide
$4.4 billion in emergency funding for weather-related
crop shortfalls, quality losses, and damage to farmed
animal feed.
Another bill seeks to reauthorize the Livestock Compensation
Program and provide aid for the recent blizzards.
Companion legislation has been introduced in the House.
The proposed aid is independent of the Disaster Declaration
programs currently being implemented by the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the U.S. Department
of Agriculture. Last year, the Emergency Agricultural
Disaster Assistance Act of 2006 was unanimously included
into the $96B Iraq/Afghanistan/hurricane relief emergency
supplemental appropriations bill, which passed the
Senate but didn’t make it out of the House-Senate
conference.